Dvorak says COVID was surreal for students, but didn’t impact his plan to become a physician

Trevor Dvorak has always wanted to be a physician. A global pandemic that rocked the healthcare world didn’t deter the Aurora graduate, though looking back he said the COVID-19 era did cause disruption in what he remembers as a surreal time in his young life.
Just months away now from completing his undergraduate studies at the University of Nebraska-Kearney, Dvorak reflected on the stretch run of his days as a Husky back at AHS in 2020, when unsettling world events started hitting closer to home.
“I remember sitting in econ class my senior year and that this COVID-19 had come out and was in China,” he shared during a phone interview from Kearney. “I didn’t really think much of it, but then saw through the end of the fall semester that it really wasn’t going away. We got to the spring semester and it started to become more prevalent in America, and then they were having massive lockdowns and cities were issuing quarantines.”
Intrigued but not yet alarmed, Dvorak said at some point it seemed to him inevitable that life was about to change, right during what was supposed to be the highlight of his senior year.
“We had spring break and they told us to bring all your stuff back and plan like you’re going to leave because we don’t know if we’ll be back here,” he recalled. “We didn’t really know the severity of how bad it was going to be so we kind of jumped in and took a leap of faith, hoping that the school would have a great solution to such a new and novel problem.”
And school officials did, in Dvorak’s view, offering classes via Zoom which allowed students to log in from home and work from school-issued laptops.
“It was really neat to see how the school adapted to it,” he said. 
What was more challenging, he shared, was staying in touch with friends and classmates with whom he was so looking forward to creating some special, final high school memories.
“When you go through your senior year you’re always enjoying the small little moments of spending those last couple of months with your friends before they go off in every which direction,” he said. “It’s always great to get back and hang out with them again and catch up, but it was kind of surreal to miss that moment with them my senior year.”
Asked if the sudden transition impacted his school experience, Dvorak had this to say.
“I think that last semester there was definitely a change in my momentum where I was very strict with my academics and extracurriculars,” he said. “I love to compete in all three seasons and was ready to start up golf and then we couldn’t do that. My academics I always put first and that kind of led me to choosing the career path and major that I did in college, being a biology comprehensive health science emphasis major at UNK.
“I wouldn’t say that I lost momentum in studying for my academics, but it was very hard to keep momentum with people when you can’t hang out with them,” he continued. “I like to think of myself as a pretty sociable person and not being able to hang out with friends and see people and family, especially grandparents that I look up to and admire so much, that was pretty difficult.”

Clear career goals
Dvorak said his college plans and career goals never once wavered through it all.
“It did not impact my decision,” he said, quite matter of factly. “I’ve always wanted to be a physician one day so I’ve always kind of had the mindset that it’s going to be a science major. I just had to narrow down to which one it was going to be — chemistry or biology — and I was really back and forth between the two. The pandemic didn’t impact my motivation to choose the biology major by any means.”
Once on campus at UNK, Dvorak said the experience was perhaps different from the norm, but not unmanageable.
“UNK was very unique in that they did not have the COVID cases that a lot of the other campuses did,” he said. “We had quite a few less COVID numbers than others so we were able to keep on campus for quite a while and we would be spaced in classrooms pretty well, six if not more feet apart with barriers between the professor teaching at the front of the room with a mask on.” 
Wearing a mask was not an option at that time, which became part of the experience.
“Everybody was in a mask, so it was very isolated, yet still in-person and on campus for a lot of our classes,” he continued. “There were some classes that were offered online, which made it nice to attend class from wherever. UNK did an awesome job at adapting to COVID-19 and trying to put an emphasis on keeping kids in classrooms. They had a very, very safe method of doing so.”
Now just months away from graduating, Dvorak is making plans for the next stage of his long academic journey — medical school. He’s already been accepted to one school but has other interviews planned before he makes a final decision. His dream of one day becoming a physician will soon be one step closer to reality.
“I remember starting to shadow PT (physical therapy) my sophomore year of high school and I was like, this is very interesting and I want to see what else is in healthcare,” he said. “I shadowed a few more people and eventually found a physician and ever since then I’ve shadowed probably close to 300 hours or so, all around different departments, and it truly feels like a very great fit for me.”
Dvorak said he got a job his freshman year at UNK at a plasma donation center and eventually transitioned into a job at the new hospital in Grand Island, where he said he gained confidence and valuable experience in a hospital setting.
“It was definitely very impactful for me because being there, present in the hospital, is unlike any other experience that you’ll ever find,” he concluded. “The relationships that I’ve been able to build and the real family feel of that hospital has been outstanding to me. It truly kind of solidified my decision to go into healthcare.”
Dvorak is the son of Troy and Jennifer Dvorak of Aurora.